The author makes lots of assertions based on very few facts.  He seems to ignore the relationship between varroa and diseases.  He likes essential oils and that always puts my antenna up as essential oils are all toxins.  

My opinion on the top five reasons people have hive deaths in winter.
1. Failure to control varroa
2. Failure to control varroa
3. Failure to control varroa
4. Failure to control varroa
5. Starvation

I do not know why a hive would die in summer unless it went queenless and was not requeened.  The only hives I have "die" in summer are ones where I am using the resources to make nucs for raising queens.  I "kill" those myself by robbing them into non-existence.

Note:  Reason 5 can happen even if there are adequate stores.  The winter before last I had a hive eat themselves into a corner and were unable to move in the cold to more than adequate stores on the other side of the hive.

Note:  The last three years I have aggressively gone after varroa with apivar and improved genetics.  My hive deaths last winter were 5% and the winter before were 12%, half of which was the starvation issue mentioned above.

Now, perhaps I am wrong and will see 75% of my hives die next winter and have just been lucky the last two winters.  But, I would bet against that happening when I am seeing people all around me seeing sky high winter deaths the last two years.  The exceptions to high winter deaths  are those who control varroa.  So far this year I have not seen one bee with deformed wings or K wings in a hive or on the ground around my hives.

I can also believe that it is not always economic to control varroa as well as I have been controlling it and some rationally run commercial businesses could well see 15% or even much higher losses as the most economic way to run their business.  So, I am not sure talking about general loss rates means much.  It is obvious we are not short of bees.  This year, just like past years, there were lots of truck loads of bees for sale coming off almonds.

Dick


" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner."  Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists.   "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."  H. L. Mencken


--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 5/22/16, Debbee Corcoran <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 Subject: [BEE-L] The Apicultural Coverup
 To: [log in to unmask]
 Date: Sunday, May 22, 2016, 5:11 PM
 
 I am curious, does anyone agree with
 this article? 
 
 http://www.beeculture.com/the-apicultural-coverup/
 
 
 
 Deb Corcoran, Bee Thankful Raw Honey
 
 Proverbs 16:24
 Pleasant words are a honeycomb, 
 sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
 
 
          
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